We're Pregnant.....Sort Of

On the evening of February 11th Darin and I were riding the ferry on the way to Seattle (to celebrate Suzette’s birthday) when we received a phone call from our friend Wanda who has adopted her two darling girls from Abby’s One True Gift Adoption Agency in Iowa. Well, Brenda from Abby’s was speaking with Wanda and mentioned that they had a birth mom expecting twins in June and wondered if anyone in Wanda’s circle of friends might be home study ready and interested. SOOOOO….Wanda called us that night. To abbreviate a somewhat long story – we agreed that we would like to “find out more” and I called Brenda the next morning.

Darin called me from work in the middle of the day on the 12th to tell me he thought we should tell the agency we were interested in moving forward – I agreed. It was so confirming to have him call me and echo my own feelings! That precipitated a week of quickly pulling together all of the necessary paperwork to prove we had a completed home study and fortunately our previous agency (Adoption Advocates International) agreed to do the necessary updates quickly!

On February 20th, we had a facilitated conference call with the birth mother, Tina and it went GREAT. Tina is a warm, loving, friendly and open person. We all agreed to move forward at that time and it was all confirmed by Friday the 22nd of February. As Darin has said: “We’re Pregnant….sort of!”

The babies are due June 20th but Tina actually went in to labor last Thursday and is now on Hospital bed rest. Baby “A” is 2 pounds 1 ounce and Baby “B” is 2 pounds. The good news is that Tina is now 26 weeks along and babies born after 26 weeks and over 2 pounds 3 ounces have a 90% survival rate. Also, Tina has received a full round of steroid treatment which greatly improves the survivability and overall long term well being of the babies. We are talking to Tina at least twice a day now – being in the hospital is really hard for her since she has three young children at home. Fortunately, her parents are able to care for her other children.

Based on the laws in Washington and Alabama, Tina will be able to change her mind until 48 hours after the babies are born. However, at this time, we feel fairly confident that she will go forward with her adoption plan. We are really enjoying our growing relationship with Tina. The most amazing thing is that she seems genuinely excited for us to be parents.

Our families are all VERY VERY excited. Oh, yeah and we found out on Friday that the babies are IDENTICAL GIRLS!!! And, yes, we do have names picked out but you’ll have to wait to hear them until the babies are born.